


Between Your Smile and Your Sleight of Hand

by Pistol



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:08:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22042687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pistol/pseuds/Pistol
Summary: For the price of seven tears, the sea can give you a gift.
Relationships: Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez/Jake Jensen
Comments: 12
Kudos: 22





	Between Your Smile and Your Sleight of Hand

Jensen doesn't worry when Cougar disappears from their hotel room. He just looks for the nearest body of water and knows he'll find Cougar there. After all, Cougar is nothing if not self flagellating. 

When Jensen stumbles upon the lake, Cougar is floating on his back, hair spinning out around him while his skin soaks in the moonlight that's peeking through the clouds.

"You'll catch your death of cold out here," Jensen calls out as he makes his way down the pier. 

Cougar glances over, lips pulling into something like a smirk. "Will I?" 

He dips under the water, emerging with slicked back hair and a neutral expression before lazily pulling himself through the water and towards the pier. At the edge of the dock, he folds his arms on top of the wood and looks expectantly up at Jensen.

Jensen crouches down with his own attempt at a smirk firmly in place. "Nah, I'll make sure to warm you up if you get too cold. After all, can't have you dying on my watch." He catches Cougar's chin, tilting it up and pressing their lips together in a way that has nothing to do with love but is comforting and familiar to them both. As he pulls away, he lets his hand linger over Cougar's face. "I'm sorry."

He's lying, but that's okay. He knows Cougar's used to the frequency at which he lies, and under Jensen's guidance, he's becoming more and more comfortable with his own lies. 

"Don't be," Cougar whispers, lifting himself out of the water and pressing another empty kiss to Jensen's lips. 

-

Cougar meets him on a beach in Mazatlan.

Jensen is far from the first human that Cougar's met, but Cougar's the first Selkie that Jensen's met, even if he doesn't know it yet. Cougar knows he's also the first person to share Jensen's bed.

Young, and drunk on more than just life, Jensen clings to him afterwards and whispers to him about his family, his dreams, and his love of fried foods. When the chatter quiets, Cougar finds himself whispering back to Jensen about the ocean. Cougar talks about the songs it sings, the secrets it holds, and endless waves that wait for his return. 

He tells Jensen that this is the first time he's visited a beach in seven years and that it will be seven more before he returns to land, no matter how much he wants to walk in sand with Jensen. 

Cougar's not sure if Jensen understands what he's saying, but he listens with rapt attention and a furrowed brow. When Cougar's stories are done, Jensen fills the silence between them with filthy words and covers Cougar's body with his own.

In the morning, Cougar leaves quietly, returning to the waves and their songs and leaves Jensen sleeping in his bed.

\- 

"Hey, Cougs, there's a pool out back, wanna join me?" Pooch looks up expectantly from his lazy sprawl. 

Cougar snorts, eyes still locked on the nature documentary playing on their tiny TV.

"Cougar doesn't like the chlorine, Poochey," Jensen informs Pooch, moving from the sink to lean in the doorway, toothbrush still hanging from his mouth. "'E says it's _unnatural_." 

Cougar sends a quick look to Jensen who smiles back with foam-covered teeth before returning to the sink to spit and rinse.

"Unnatural, huh? Unnatural is suffering through this heat." Pooch nudges at Cougar with his foot. "Come on, man. The Pooch is dying and you _know_ you love the water. You're more a shark than a cougar."

"A shark, huh?" Jensen plops down next to Cougar. He gives Cougar an exaggerated once over. "What would that make us? I mean, I'm assuming Pooch is a dog, but what am I? What animal could _possibly_ emulate all my awesome?"

"How about a clown fish?" Pooch suggests dryly. 

"I don't know." Jensen presses his shoulder into Cougar's. "I kinda see myself as an orca."

"A killer whale?" Pooch laughs, too preoccupied to notice how stiff Cougar's back gets or the gleam that Jensen can see in Cougar's eyes. "Like the ones at Sea World that wave to the crowds and do tricks for the audiences?"

"Yeah, Pooch, exactly like that." Jensen lifts his hand, waving at Cougar. "What do you think, Cougs?"

Cougar shrugs. "Doesn't matter," he says, turning back to the TV.

"Hey, Pooch," Jensen says still smiling at Cougar, "guess what's one of the orca's favorite meals?"

-

The second time Cougar meets Jensen, it isn't on the sands of Mazatlan, but on that of the Côte d'Ivoire. 

Jensen's barely conscious, lying half in the ocean and half on the once quiet beach that's now littered with the bodies of Jensen's friends and the men who shot at them. Cougar wants to tell him how he watched them fall and bleed, so painfully aware that he was unable to touch the sands for another three years no matter how much he wanted to. Instead Cougar kneels next to Jensen, carefully moving Jensen's head out of the salty water and onto his lap.

Cougar carefully wipes away a tear from Jensen's cheek before it joins the others in the ocean. Jensen blinks, weakly trying to raise his weapon at Cougar. 

"You knew me once," he reminds Jensen gently. "I will do you no harm."

The gun in Jensen's hand shakes with the effort it must take him to raise it, before falling barrel down in the reddened sand. "You… you're…"

"I am." Cougar reaches out to catch another tear, this one tinted pink with the blood that's steadily oozing from the gash on Jensen's forehead. "You gave the ocean seven tears, so I was allowed to come to you."

"Holy shit," Jensen wheezes. "Look, I've had a few years to come to terms with the crazy that is you, but I'm kind of dying here so I'd appreciate it if you'd take your crazy seal-person stories and let me bleed out in peace."

Cougar frowns, gingerly running his fingers over the side of Jensen's face. "You will not die here."

"Says the hallucination of a crazy dude who took my V-card and didn't even have the courtesy to stick around for breakfast." Jensen opens his mouth to say more, but stops when his eyes roll up and his body goes limp under Cougar' hands.

-

Jensen only kisses him, never giving or allowing anything more, because while he is angry and probably not quite sane, there are still lines he won't cross. Even if he can sometimes feel the bittersweet echoes of their first meeting when Cougar touches him. Sadly, those feelings are no match for the cold burning rage that Jensen has honed into a weapon over the years.

"I want to hurt you, sometimes," he whispers into Cougar's neck. 

Cougar sighs, arms wrapping around Jensen while he lets his body go slack with trust. Trust and compliance are the weapons Cougar has honed since he lost his pelt. They're always deftly wielded and deeply cutting, and Jensen's rage is no match for them. Out of spite, Jensen leaves an angry trail of teeth marks down the side of Cougar's neck. 

Cougar leans into him, and Jensen closes his eyes, wondering if he could ever hate Cougar more than he hates himself. Jensen opens his eyes long enough to find the worst of the bites, pressing his lips over the angry red skin.

"You want to hurt me all the time," Cougar murmurs as he presses his body into the apologetic kisses.

"Yeah, yeah." Jensen rolls away, as far as their too small bed will allow. "That, too."

-

"I can't stay."

Cougar watches Jensen frown and stare intently at the crack running along the wall of the abandoned shack that's been the whole of their world for the last three days. "Because you don't want to explain what the fuck is going on?"

Jensen's words make him flinch back. "I-"

"'Cause I gotta say, I'm really starting to lose my cool now that I'm pretty sure I'm not dead. Mind you, I didn't have much cool to begin with, but what I had has am-fucking-scrayed ever since the guy I hooked up with in Mexico like five years ag-"

"Three years," Cougar corrects.

Jensen glares. "Like I was _saying_, I'm not finding a lot of answers as to why the guy I met _three_ years ago showed up, _naked_, on a beach after my…" he stops, sucking in a deep lungful of air as he clenches his hands in the sheets. "… after my unit…" Anything Jensen might have said gets lost in his ragged breaths as he digs the palms of his hands into his eyes. "_Fuck_."

Cougar gently moves forward, sitting on the edge of the cot in clothing that's still stained with the blood of its original owner. After a while, one of Jensen's hands darts out to wrap itself around Cougar's wrist in a punishing grip.

"Are you going to explain anything?" Jensen asks in a quiet voice. "Or will I wake up tomorrow and you'll be gone after filling my head with more of your wack-job fairytales?"

"My time here is short," Cougar admits.

"Does that mean you're not going to explain the crazy that is you?"

"I told you, I can only walk the-"

"Shut up," Jensen hisses, grip tightening around Cougar's wrist almost to the point of pain.

That night, Cougar covers a too-cold Jensen with his pelt. "It will keep you warm," he says. Jensen nods absently, brows furrowed as he stares down at the pelt.

"Is this…"

Cougar shrugs.

"So, if I decided to keep this…"

"I would be yours," he answers dutifully. "I would remain on the land at your side."

Jensen sighs, pushing the pelt into Cougar's hands. "It's not that cold in here."

Cougar can see the tremors from the chill that the night air brings. He takes a stilling breath, returning his pelt over Jensen's body. "You need the warmth."

Jensen makes a quiet, pained sound but stays still as Cougar lays down next to him. 

"This seems… wrong." Jensen whispers to Cougar, words slurred from exhaustion. 

"It's how this works."

"But where's your choice in all of this?"

Cougar takes Jensen's hand in his, moving it to the pelt. 

-

"You need to age," Jensen tells him distractedly as he taps away at his computer.

"I do?"

Jensen peers up at him, rolling his eyes. "Carlos Alvarez will be turning thirty this year and you still look like you're in your early twenties." 

"I'll need my pelt to do that."

Jensen watches Cougar, who's avoiding eye contact and fiddling with his MRE bag. He chuckles. "You're getting better at lying, but you've still got a ways to go."

Cougar sighs, muttering under his breath, but Jensen watches as the lines around Cougar's face grow marginally deeper.

-

They're sleeping, curled around each other when Jensen finally seems to hear the helicopter coming over the hill. 

"Holy shit, they actually sent someone after us," Jensen says excitedly. "We're getting out of this shit hole!"

"We?"

Jensen blinks over at him. "I mean… if you wanted to," he says, carefully sweeping his fingers over the pelt that covers them. "You could come with." 

Cougar raises a brow. While he has not spent much time on land, he knows enough to know that people on the land have pasts and that walking out of the ocean isn't a past they would understand. "How would you explain me?"

Jensen smiles brightly. "Dude, you're looking at a master of forgery, well, okay, not really. But get me a phone and give my sister ten hours, we'll get you a ID set up like that." He snaps his fingers.

Cougar frowns. "It'll be a lie."

"So?" Jensen frowns looking confused.

"I don't lie."

"Well, I'll teach you," he says with a shrug. 

Cougar nods along, not really listening as he watches Jensen gingerly folding his pelt and stowing it in his bag. Jensen looks over with nervous eyes.

"You don't have to do this, I mean, I could-"

"No," Cougar says firmly. "But later you will need to hide it. Somewhere I can't find it."

Jensen makes another pained sound as he zips up his bag. "Right. That seems … healthy."

-

"Do you love me?" Cougar asks Jensen quietly from the back of the yellow stretch hummer that Pooch had managed to procure.

Jensen is still dazed, still reeling from the events of the day and finding himself thinking crazy things. This would have all been so much easier if Roque just had a pelt that Jensen could have stolen. He could have taken it and hidden it away next to Cougar's for safe keeping. 

"Jensen," Cougar says again, softer this time. "Do you love me?"

Jensen looks over, smiling brightly at him as he pushes away impossible thoughts. "Of course I do, Cougs."

Jensen watches as Cougar's lips purse, nodding stiffly. He's taught Cougar enough about lying to know that Cougar has recognized the lie. 

For some reason, this time, his lie is sitting heavy and cold in Jensen's chest.

"Why?" Cougar asks.

Jensen can hear the _why do you keep me trapped here if you don't love me_ that he can't or won't say.

"Because I know you'll always be there for me." It's spoken before Jensen can think about it, hanging heavily between them like the loss of Cougar's pelt.

Pooch snorts from the driver's seat, misunderstanding them like so many do. When Pooch starts to make exaggerated kissing sounds, Jensen laughs, reaching out to hold Cougar's hand. 

Across from them, Aisha and Clay roll their eyes, misinterpreting punishment for love. 

-

Cougar's spent three years walking in the human world and sleeping in Jensen's bed when the call of the ocean gets to be too much. It's always there, singing to him and calling him back home. After a day filled with death and another first hand look at the cruelty of humans, Cougar doesn't think. He makes his way from their bed to the safe where he has seen Jensen place his pelt for safe keeping.

The safe swings open easily enough, but there's nothing inside it.

"Were you even going to say goodbye?" Jensen's voice is hollow and cold, and when Cougar turns, his eyes are the same.

"No," Cougar admits. 

Jensen nods, turning back to make his way to their bed.

"Where is my pelt?"

"Hidden," Jensen calls over his shoulder. "Like you wanted it to be."

Cougar turns away, unable to look at Jensen. "I want to go home. Not forever, just for-"

Jensen laughs harshly. "Oh, Cougar. You _are_ home."

**Author's Note:**

> Was previously posted, then taken down. Now it's back up. Beware the errors and typos, I suspect the files I found on my old hard drive are the pre-beta versions.  
Please don't steal any of my silly stories and change some names around and then try to sell them as books on Amazon or I'm gonna have to take everything down again.


End file.
